


No Way Out

by slashmania



Series: 50 Thousand Words (from October to December!) [19]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Eames is smoking and thinking about the future, M/M, Smoking, no way out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21916864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmania/pseuds/slashmania
Summary: There was a chance that this was going to get messy. He could easily fall in love with Arthur if he wasn’t in love with him already and just denying it because he was an idiot; sometimes one never knew until it was too late and sprung up unbidden just to embarrass the fuck out of everyone involved.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Series: 50 Thousand Words (from October to December!) [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1503791
Kudos: 24





	No Way Out

**Author's Note:**

> Day 19: No Way Out  
> 1,086 words

When Arthur and Eames finally got together it was glorious.

It was an evening spent buzzed on their own success at having completed an Inception. Eames who had tried one in the past, but it hadn’t taken, was very pleased with it having worked out. Especially after the nonsense on his level when Cobb had fucked them all over by not shooting his projection of his wife before she killed their mark.

Arthur hadn’t even thought that the job would work. You couldn’t plant an idea into someone’s head. They’d know that someone else had given the thing to them, negating the plan and making it worthless. But they had done it. It was wonderful. Cobb was going to go home to his children, Saito looked a little shaken, but he’d managed to get off the flight and make his connecting flight afterwards.

They’d decided to throw caution into the wind and go get dinner together, since ironically they were going to be staying in the same ritzy hotel.

“- and then I was running down the hallway as it was rotating,” Arthur was explaining to Eames over his third glass of wine, the large meal they’d enjoyed together easily sopping up the booze they were drinking. “And there was no gravity after Yusuf drove the van off the side of the bridge.”

Eames was listening with great interest. “But how did you drop us without gravity, love?”

Arthur smiled widely in response. It was the sort of like the smile Arthur had given him on the second level when they were exchanging words over a PASIV line. “I put you all in an elevator and used explosives to simulate a kick. See, I _do_ have an imagination!” Arthur pronounced the last bit in an excited whisper.

“Of course you do, Arthur. You’re the best!”

Arthur shook his head quickly, left to right nearly negating Eames’s compliment to him.

“No way, Eames! What about all the shit you had to do on your level? You had to bring Fischer back from the dead-”

“I gave him a shock with an automated external defibrillator I included in the room once the shit had truly hit the fan,” Eames corrected the slightly drunk Arthur.

“And you tried to save Saito,” Arthur added.

“I gave him his gun and an explosive so he could continue to protect everyone’s bodies while they were using the PASIV to get down to Limbo and rescue Fischer from Mal. I had to go and set the charges for the kick, you see,” Eames corrected once more.

Arthur was pausing to take another sip of wine. Maybe to moisten his throat because all of this talking was drying him out.

“You also got to see the inception happening, didn’t you? You got to see that special moment where everything we had been building up through three layers of dream time suddenly worked.”

That was one that Eames wouldn’t deny. Wouldn’t rather than couldn’t because Eames had this idea that maybe after this was all over he’d continue doing dream share but do mostly inceptions since it could be easier if it was planned right and Cobb didn’t dare try to be on the project. But Arthur could be there, Eames was thinking. Eames really wanted Arthur to be there for any of those inception jobs. The man needed to get to work with someone who wasn’t mad. And not to toot his own horn too much, but Eames felt that he was more stable that that stupid totem Cobb would spin in the dream and constantly explain shit about when no one was supposed to know how it worked just in case they were going to backstab him.

Eames really wanted to work with Arthur, basically.

“You’re right,” Eames agreed. “It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Satisfying, really. I think if I get the right team together I could do nothing but inceptions. Or mostly inceptions. Do you want to be my point man, darling? I promise I don’t have any projections that could just shoot you whenever they like.”

Arthur reached out for Eames’s hand. They shook on it but Arthur held onto Eames’s hand for a little bit after that.

They actually toasted each other for their successes. They talked about their dreams and wishes.

They eventually gave each other their room numbers, but then chose to head up to Arthur’s room for a nightcap, but really ended up locking the doors, putting their totems on the bedside tables, and fucking like it was their last night on earth.

And then they did it again just to be thorough.

Sharing a cigarette afterwards would have been nice, but Arthur had been so tired after the fireworks were over that he wrapped himself in the blanket and trusted Eames to not shoot him in the head while he was so defenseless.

No, Eames had gone to the balcony and smoked a cigarette all by himself so he could consider his future with a lighter head. He let the calming act of smoking soothe him and get him down from the high he experienced from Arthur, with Arthur, and let himself look at the situation.

There was a chance that this was going to get messy. He could easily fall in love with Arthur if he wasn’t in love with him already and just denying it because he was an idiot; sometimes one never knew until it was too late and sprung up unbidden just to embarrass the fuck out of everyone involved.

In the past Eames would operate with an exit strategy of some kind. A way out, a clean break, so there would be less of a risk of injury or needless emotional hurt.

But Eames had this feeling that with Arthur not only would there be no way out, no way of escaping this, but that Eames himself wouldn’t want to. He finished his cigarette and hoped that Arthur would feel the same way in the morning. It would be a shame if Arthur had regretted this decision.

Eames was hopeful as he crawled back into bed with Arthur, enjoying the way the other man curled up against his side once Eames was back in bed. Eames stared up at the ceiling and waited for sleep to take him, comfortable and relaxed as he waited for this new future to take him wherever he could go.

As long as he was with Arthur, all the doors would be open.


End file.
